Would the Real Gandhi Please Stand Up?

by G.B. Singh

Almost everyone knows of Mahatma Gandhi. Barring few
exceptions within the ranks of fundamentalist Hindus, Gandhi is
universally recognized for his nonviolent crusades to seek justice,
liberty, and equality, and applauded for bringing independence to India
from British colonialism. Some Hindu fundamentalists do not think much of
Gandhi because they believe that he harbored excessive pro-Muslim views,
which went against the general welfare of the Hindus. The validity of such
views has never been openly debated, and those who hold such anti-Gandhi
views have never examined their views critically. If other Indians outside
the small circle of Hindu fundamentalists held anti-Gandhi opinions, I am
not aware of them. Moreover, the public has been told that the vast
majority of Indians do respect Gandhi. Some even go so far as to literally
worship him.

I was raised in India and taught to follow in the
footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi. After coming to the United States, I was
amazed to see how popular Gandhi was in Western society—more so than in
India, in some respects. Even more amazing was his popularity among Black
Americans. The release of the film “Gandhi” in 1982 increased his
popularity, and young Black Americans went to the theaters to see the
movie as part of their school curriculum. Now those Black Americans are
adults, and many of them happen to meet me on a daily basis. Talking to
them, I have recognized that Gandhi is a far more famous figure among
African Americans. Many of them associate the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
with Gandhi. They believe that Dr. King followed in the footsteps of
Gandhi and thus modeled his Civil Rights Movement after him. Therefore,
the successes of the movement are attributed to Gandhi. This view is even
shared by the senior officials of the National Park Service that installed
Gandhi’s statue at the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site
in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1998.

Because I enjoy my conversations with African
Americans, I often get them thinking radically differently by asking them:

“What was Gandhi’s relationship to Black
people?”

They answer back: “The relationship had to be a
good one.” This is supported, as they point out unhesitatingly, by the
example of Dr. King, who, of course, followed him.

I then will ask: “Do you know that Dr. King never
met Gandhi?”

Many of them are not aware that King and Gandhi had
never met. I then repeat my earlier question: “What was Gandhi’s
relationship to Black people?”

I get no answers.

Many Blacks are not cognizant of the fact that Gandhi
lived in South Africa from 1893 to 1914. He then lived in India from 1915
to 1948. My question to them pertains to Gandhi’s relationship with
Blacks precisely at the time when he lived in South Africa for 21 years.
One cannot help but discern that there is not a single Black person
anywhere in any of the photos of Gandhi during that time. With Black
people in the great majority, there is no way that Gandhi had missed
noticing them.

Why is this? The answer is very simple: Gandhi hated
Black people. Only a few scholars are aware of this background. For all
practical purposes, the burden of unraveling this mystery fell upon my
shoulders. Here are some of the highlights:

In 1906 Gandhi had participated in a war against
Blacks. The Gandhian literature either keeps quiet on the subject or tries
to paint him as a great humanitarian who actually helped Blacks by
rendering to them urgent medical care. Had he not done so, we are told,
many Blacks would have died. While researching the historical documents,
however, I found that Gandhi’s participation had nothing to do with
“humanitarian concerns” for Black people. He was more concerned with
“allying relationships” with the colonial Whites living in Natal
colony. Driven by his racial outlook, he went out of his way to enlist
Indians to join the army under him to fight for his cause against the
Blacks. He also considered Indians living in South Africa to be “fellow
colonists” along with the White colonists, over the indigenous Blacks.

We accredit Gandhi with inventing the great technique
of Satyagraha, the nonviolent resistance movement to redress wrongs.
Satyagraha had its birth in South Africa, and the popular history books
laud Gandhi’s successes in his struggles for his people against the
system of apartheid. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. We
need to ask: If Gandhi’s technique was so good and was of such
tremendous importance to the suffering Blacks of South Africa, then why is
it that not a single Black newspaper ever mentioned Gandhi’s Satyagraha?
Again, as my research led me to delve more deeply into the historical
records, I learned that the inception of Gandhi’s Satyagraha had the
underpinnings of anti-Black racism. This especially came to light after
Gandhi was convicted for breaking the law in 1908, and then sentenced. To
his surprise, as he walked into the prison, he noticed “niggers,” and
had to live among them. This was bad news to him and it fortified his
racist resolve which formed the very foundation of his Satyagraha
struggle. Here is one excerpt from my book that Gandhi wrote himself:

The cell was situated in the Native quarters and we
were housed in one that was labelled “For Colured Debtors”. It was
this experience for which we were perhaps all unprepared. We had fondly
imagined that we would have suitable quarters apart from the Natives. As
it was, perhaps, it was well that we were classed with the Natives. We
would now be able to study the life of native prisoners, their customs
and manners. I felt, too, that passive resistance had not been
undertaken too soon by the Indian community. Degradation underlay the
classing of Indians with Natives. The Asiatic Act seemed to me to be the
summit of our degradation. It did appear to me, as I think it would
appear to any unprejudiced reader, that it would have been simple
humanity if we were given special quarters. The fault did not lie with
the gaol authorities. It was the fault of the law that has made no
provision for the special treatment of Asiatic prisoners. Indeed, the
Governor of the gaol tried to make us as comfortable as he could within
the regulations. The chief warder, as also the head warder, who was in
immediate charge of us, completely fell in with the spirit that actuated
the Governor. But he was powerless to accommodate us beyond the horrible
din and the yells of the Native prisoners throughout the day and partly
at night also. Many of the Native prisoners are only one degree removed
from the animal and often created rows and fought among themselves in
their cells. The Governor could not separate the very few Indian
prisoners (It speaks volumes for Indians that among several hundred
there were hardly half a dozen Indian prisoners) from the cells occupied
by Native prisoners. And yet it is quite clear that separation is a
physical necessity. So much was the classification of Indians and other
Asiatics with the Natives insisted upon that our jumpers, which being
new were not fully marked, had to be labelled “N”, meaning Natives.
How this thoughtless classification has resulted in the Indians being
partly starved will be clearer when we come to consider the question of
food.

A number of Black American leaders in the late 1930s
went to India and met Gandhi. Their encounters with Gandhi have never been
critically analyzed. The propaganda channels have tried to describe these
visits as highly educational, claiming that they brought new vigor to the
Blacks’ fight against racism in America, using Gandhi’s example. The
truth, however, is that two of these Black leaders, Benjamin E. Mays and
Howard Thurman, who had such a profound influence on the Rev. King, never
mentioned a word about Gandhi to the young adult King.

The Untouchable (the Black people) population of
India should catch our attention. The history books tell us that Gandhi
brought about revolutionary changes in the Hindu society to the point that
prejudices against the Untouchables had just about evaporated. Is this at
all accurate? Even Dr. King believed that Gandhi brought about the miracle
in his following words:

One day Mahatma Gandhi stood before his people and
said: “You are exploiting these untouchables. Even though we are
fighting with all that we have of our bodies and our souls to break loose
from the bondage of the British Empire, we are exploiting these people and
we are taking from them their selfhood and their self-respect.” He said,
“I will refuse to eat until the leaders of the caste system will come to
me with the leaders of the untouchables and say that there will be an end
to untouchability and the Hindu temples of India will open their doors to
the untouchables.” And he refused to eat, and days passed. Finally when
Gandhi was about to breathe his last breath, and his body was all but
gone, a group from the untouchables and a group from the Brahmin caste
came to him and signed a statement that they would no longer adhere to the
caste system. The priest of the temple came to him and said, “Now the
temples will be opened to the untouchables.” That afternoon,
untouchables from all over India went into the temples and all of these
thousands and millions of people put their arms around the Brahmins and
people of other castes. Hundreds of millions of people who had never
touched each other for two thousand years were now singing and praising
all together. This was a great contribution that Mahatma Gandhi brought
about.

My research into Gandhi and what he actually did to
the Untouchables is radically different from what the Rev. King uttered.
In a nutshell, Gandhi made sure that the vast Untouchable population would
be willingly subjugated forever under the oppression of the higher castes.
Dr. King was off by a mile.

India was a British colony until 1947. We accredit
Gandhi with launching Satyagraha movements against the British, which
ultimately forced the British out of India. This story has been told
repeatedly to Black people all over the world, and there has always been
an underlying point emphasizing that Blacks should emulate Gandhi. He is
the messiah that will free us all from racial oppression. Critical
scrutiny of the literature, however, suggests that Blacks should avoid
Gandhi rather than emulate him.

In post-British India the Indian leaders proclaim
themselves the followers of the peaceful Gandhi. Yet they are all seeking
to build weapons of mass destruction. Did we miss something important
here?

I am very well aware of the fact that my findings on
Gandhi’s racism will incite a whole lot of controversy. Be that as it
may, I am of the view that the facts speak for themselves. I have
exhausted the last 18 years of my life critically analyzing these hidden
documents, and I have no doubt that Gandhi harbored anti-Black views and
forced his racial views on his fellow Indian countrymen while living in
South Africa.

G.B. Singh is the author of the forthcoming book, Behind the Mask of
Divinity.

Copyright notice: The copyright for
the contents of this web site rests with the Council for Secular Humanism.
You may download and read the documents. Without permission, you may
not alter this information, repost it, or sell it.
If you use a document, you are encouraged to make a donation to the Council
for Secular Humanism.